Individuality and Genus 229such science is only preparatory for the kind of cognition
we attain from the content of a human individuality’s will-
ing. When we have the sense that we are dealing with the
aspect of a person that is free from typical styles of
thought and generic desires, then we must make use of no
concept from our own mind if we want to understand that
person’s essence. Cognition consists in linking a concept
with a percept through thinking. For all other objects, the
observer must penetrate to the concept by means of his or
her own intuition. Understanding a free individuality is
exclusively a question of bringing over into our own spirit
in a pure form (unmixed with our own conceptual content)
those concepts by which the individuality determines it-
self. People who immediately mix their own concepts into
any judgment of others can never attain understanding of
an individuality. Just as a free individuality frees itself
from the characteristics of the genus, cognition must free
itself from the approach appropriate to understanding
what is generic.
People can be considered free spirits within the human
community only to the degree that they free themselves
from the generic in this way. No human is all genus; none
is all individuality. But all human beings gradually free a
greater or lesser sphere of their being both from what is
generic to animal life and from the controlling decrees of
human authorities.
Our remaining part, where we have yet to win such
freedom, still constitutes an element within the total or-
ganism of nature and mind. In this regard, we live as we
see others live or as they command. Only the part of our